You know what really grinds my gears? What gears you ask? Well the GEARS OF WAR(gaming conventions). Join Jonathan today as he vents his mind in regards to what can improve our beloved gaming cons.

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1 – Unnecessarily Difficult Experiences

It shouldn’t be like searching for the Ark of the Covenant to find where you are supposed to be gaming. Failing to number tables for GMs, mentioned in the TotalCon 2017 ep, is a prime example, This is a simple fix and very easy to avoid. Other things would be inadequate gaming space, having the con in hard to find locations, when your GPS says “good luck” when you put in the address is a bad sign.

2 – Registration problems

You should not be able to pre-register for games that are full. Opening pre-registration for hotel rooms and/or the convention too far in advance also falls into this category. Just like a fat person getting small clothes before they lose weight, when the time comes you just don’t know if it will fit.

3 – Unclear rules

The con should have a clearly stated and found code of conduct/terms of service/policies. They should at least state what is or is not allowed and also how monetary transactions are to occur. By this I mean they should say how much a ticket costs, payment methods, etc. If Moses could present 10 rules to the Hebrews, con organisers could come up with a handful of common sense guidelines.

4 – Lack of gaming variety/too much variety

It is annoying when a con has 5 games using a single system/time period to the detriment of all else. It is also annoying if there’s a lot of different games that don’t cover any of the most popular systems/time periods. Clumping similar games/periods together such as all the WW2 games in a Saturday afternoon slot can be another problem. This tends to rely more on the GMs submitting the games as they submit what they like and when they can run the game. The con does have a responsibility to intervene. Not everyone can be at the con all weekend or can play in that Saturday afternoon. You need spread things out. Just like vegemite, it is better if its spread lightly and evenly.

5 – No Attendee Feedback

Every con should strive to provide the best customer service it can. Nobody is perfect and even for those that are great they can benefit from feedback. Every con should have some method for attendees to easily provide feedback. This can be as simple as a SurveyMonkey survey online, feedback forms at the con, or posting on social media. The con needs to take that feedback to heart, think about it, and make any necessary changes. Don’t be like comic store guy from the Simpsons – “worst feedback ever….”

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